Overview

The world recession finally ended in 1993 and, for the first time since 1990, output in all of the major economies advanced in the first quarter of 1994. By the end of the year, recovery was in progress across the industrialized world.

In the case of the G-7 economies (Group of Seven: the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., and Canada), the economic cycle remained desynchronized. U.S. output had risen steadily since 1991; in the U.K. recovery began a year later. In continental Europe it was only at the end of 1993 that the turnaround definitely arrived; in Japan it was not until the second half of 1994 that recession finally came to an end. For the industrialized world as a whole, 1993 marked the fourth successive year in which the manufacturing industry had contracted (see Table I and Table IV).

The differing cyclical experience was reflected in the policy stance of the G-7 economies. In the U.S., where inflationary concerns were becoming more important than the need to support demand, the long period of monetary ease came to an end in 1994, starting with an upward move in interest rates in February. The U.K. followed with a severe fiscal tightening in April and an interest-rate hike in September. In Germany and across the core economies of the European exchange-rate mechanism (ERM), interest rates continued to fall. In Japan both fiscal and monetary policy eased.

Still, the U.S. dollar remained weak, falling in the course of 1994 to new post-World War II lows against the Japanese yen. Its weakness was exaggerated by the fall in world bond markets after the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank began to raise interest rates. While the U.S. authorities were happy to have a low dollar, since this improved the competitiveness of U.S. industry, it caused major problems for Japan, which traditionally relied upon exports to drive its economy forward. Japan was struggling to redirect demand away from exports in favour of domestic spending, especially consumption. Meanwhile in the U.S., domestic manufacturers reveled in the heightened competitiveness with the Japanese; nowhere was this more evident than in Detroit, Mich., where the U.S. automobile industry won back market share.

Perhaps the major surprise in the world economy in 1994 was the speed with which continental Europe turned around. By midyear it was clear that recovery had begun and that exports were the main factor. German capital goods exporters in particular were taking advantage of the strength of the yen to steal the march on their Japanese competitors, especially in Far Eastern markets.

One reason why the U.S. government was so keen to secure a move away from export dependency in Japan was the way in which many Pacific Rim economies followed the Japanese strategy of export-led growth and developed rapidly as a result. The recession in the G-7 barely touched upon the dynamic Asian economies, which continued to record double-digit rates of growth in manufacturing output. In this they were helped not only by the strength of the yen--since many of these economies pegged their currency to the dollar--but also by the outflow of Japanese capital looking for more profitable opportunities in the low-wage economies elsewhere in Asia. Here the main development was the speed at which China was industrializing, especially in the provinces adjacent to Hong Kong.

The world economy was experiencing a major shift in the centre of gravity of industrial production (see Table III) --away from Europe and North America and toward the newly industrializing, dynamic economies of Southeast Asia. Vietnam, in particular, seemed to have begun the next great boom in the area. Newly privatized local industries were making an impressive turnaround, and foreign investors and aid agencies were lining up to assist. Coping with the competition from Asia was a key determinant of growth elsewhere in the world. One encouraging feature was that many of the economies of Latin America were responding well, throwing off their hyperinflationary past. (See WORLD AFFAIRS: Spotlight: Latin America’s New Economic Strategy.)

For the former communist economies, now in transition to a market-based system, the challenge from Southeast Asia was an extra hurdle. So far the more reformist economies of Eastern Europe were meeting the challenge because they benefited from their proximity to main European markets and their low wage costs. For the less reform-minded and those economies farther from Western Europe, however, huge difficulties remained (see Table II). Geoffrey R. Dicks

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